Blazers' Jabari Walker looks like the biggest steal of the NBA Draft so far during Summer League
Jabari Walker, whose father Samaki Walker was an NBA champion, already looks like one of the best picks in the 2022 NBA Draft.
Walker is 6-foot-8 with a near 7-foot wingspan and almost averaged a double-double (14.6 ppg and 9.4 rpg) as a high-major underclassman. As a sophomore, he led the conference in rebounds and he was named First-Team All-Pac-12.
He finished his collegiate career shooting 39.9 percent on 3-pointers, even connecting on 4-of-5 from beyond the arc in an NCAA tournament game. So how did someone like that, who is still only 19 years old, fall to the second-to-last pick in the 2022 NBA Draft?
Based on what we have seen from him in NBA 2K23 Summer League, it is even harder to answer that question.
His basic productivity in Las Vegas has been solid, averaging 13.0 points per game. But he is scoring at an efficient rate of 1.39 points per possession, per Synergy, the highest mark among all players selected in the 2022 NBA Draft.
Most notably: Walker has recorded seven possessions in which he has cut toward the basket. He has scored or earned a trip to the free-throw line (or in some cases, both) each time.
That includes this massive alley-oop against the Knicks on Monday night:
Also encouraging: He is shooting 37.5 percent on his 3-pointers as well.
But he is adding more value to the team than just his scoring. Walker, additionally, leads drafted players in total rebound percentage (22.3 percent) during Summer League.
His defense has impressed considerably, too. Walker is 6-foot-8 but had little trouble switching on to defend 6-foot-1 guard Miles McBride, which you can watch below:
This defensive tenacity is exactly what you need alongside Damian Lillard, especially if Walker can continue to show that he can defend on the perimeter at the professional level.
It’s worth noting that the advanced stats love Walker, too. Win Shares (WS), Player Efficiency Rating (PER), and Floor Impact Counter (FIC) are three of the only catch-all metrics that are publicly tracked for Summer League.
Although these stats are a bit flawed, for context: Walker leads all drafted players in Win Shares (0.7) and PER (33.0) and he trails only first-round pick Tari Eason in FIC (40.1) thus far.
It is hard to make a sweeping claim about raw plus-minus in an exhibition game, but in Las Vegas, the Blazers tend to perform better when Walker is on the floor relative to when he is not.
Walker was a low-risk, high-reward draft pick in the second round by the Blazers.
He became one of sixteen played from the University of Colorado drafted within the last thirty years. Another one of those players is Chauncey Billups, who currently coaches the Blazers.
Don’t be surprised if Billups finds playing time for his fellow Buffalo in the NBA rotation sooner rather than later. Based on what we have seen so far, it would be well-deserved.